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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26200249">Thought Experiment</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirigibleplumbing/pseuds/dirigibleplumbing'>dirigibleplumbing</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel 616</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Avengers Vol. 4 (2010), Getting Together, Infinity Gauntlet (Marvel), Infinity Gems, M/M, Reconciliation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:15:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,369</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26200249</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirigibleplumbing/pseuds/dirigibleplumbing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After Tony wields the Infinity Gauntlet, Steve comes to see him. Tony expects to be kicked off the team. Instead, Steve apologizes for their fight in Attilan. He surprises Tony further by saying he wants to get together romantically. But can Tony believe Steve is in full control of his actions?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Steve Rogers/Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Captain America/Iron Man Bingo</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Thought Experiment</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For the "questionable decision-making-process" square on my Stony bingo. </p><p>This is not beta'd. I am looking for a beta / cheerreader who knows 616 canon. If you're interested, leave me a comment, <a href="http://tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/dirigibleplumbing">message me on tumblr</a>, or <a href="mailto:dirigibleplumbing@gmail.com">email me</a>. </p><p>Takes place right after Avengers Volume 4 (2010) #12—so Steve is alive again, Tony is missing a year of memory, things are uneasy between them with post Civil War feels, and the plotline with the Hood and the Infinity Gems has just wrapped up. </p><p>If you’re not familiar, briefly: the Hood (Parker Robbins), previously a minor villain, starts gathering Infinity Gems. Steve discovers that Tony, Reed, Xavier, Strange, Black Bolt, and Namor have been meeting as the Illuminati for years and hiding the knowledge and location of the Gems, telling no one else. Steve’s furious. He and Tony argue. Steve says that when this is over, Tony’s off the team for good. Ultimately, Tony wields the Gauntlet, gives a speech about the things he could do with it but chooses not to, and then does only two things: teleports the Hood to the Raft, and wishes the Gems out of existence. Or at least, that’s what he says in front of the other Avengers; in fact, the Gems are intact, and the Illuminati, now including Steve, scatters and hides the Gems once more.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hey,” Steve says, resting a hip against Tony’s worktable. He’s wearing a pair of faded jeans that he’s had for as long as Tony’s known him, worn soft with years of use and washing. It matches his smile now, somehow; a smile Tony can’t explain or account for. “What’re you working on?” </p><p>“Hi,” Tony says, setting his stylus aside and getting to his feet. It’s not a reply to what Steve’s said, but Steve doesn’t want to know anyway, not really. This isn’t them, not any more: Steve doesn’t visit Tony in his workshop. Tony doesn’t explain his latest schematics or test builds or armor modifications. Still. It’s hard not to imagine—</p><p>“I wanted to talk to you.” </p><p>“Right.” Tony looks at his hands. He wishes he still had the stylus to fiddle with, and has to will his fingers still instead. </p><p>Steve may be a member of the Illuminati now, but that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten everything that’s happened: that Tony kept that secret from him in the first place; that he promised Tony he’d be held accountable for his sins; that Tony wielded the Infinity Gauntlet; that Tony claimed to have destroyed the Gems, only to keep them secret again. </p><p>Tony knows just what’s going to happen. </p><p>“You’re right.” </p><p>“What?” </p><p>“Don’t be a dick, Tony,” Steve says, and when Tony glances up, Steve’s smirking, tentative and playful at once. </p><p>“Just wondering if I could get you to say it again,” Tony says, unthinking. He hasn’t known how to act around Steve, not since he woke up to find a whole year overwritten in his brain. This is a role reversal for them, now, Steve’s friendliness and Tony’s stiffness. It makes him feel like he’s skipped a step on a staircase, standing here and acting like he's used to the idea that they aren't friends. </p><p>“I’m sorry I let my personal feelings take over. I don’t like being kept in the dark.” Steve looks at Tony from under his eyelashes, a small smile unfurling from his features like a butterfly emerging still damp and delicate, fresh from its chrysalis. “Especially when it’s you.” </p><p>“I know,” Tony says, though he’s not sure he does. “Uh. It wasn’t just you. Really, we didn’t tell anyone, not even Sue or Medusa knew.” </p><p>“I know.” </p><p>Right. Reed had said so. Medusa had said so.</p><p>Steve, thankfully, doesn't comment on the parallel Tony's inadvertently drawn. </p><p>“Right," Tony says. </p><p>Around them, cooling fans whir softly. The sound of a fabricator working is dulled by walls and distance. Music plays, something Tony wasn’t listening to in the first place, volume so low he couldn’t make out lyrics, just a steady buzz to match the chatter of his brain. </p><p>The damage done in the fights with Simon and Apocalypse is conspicuous in its absence. The mundanity of it all is overbearing: the familiar configurations of electronics and drawers of tools and placements of worktops; the at once unfamiliar arrangements of parts and furniture orchestrated by past versions of himself—versions remembered and forgotten and overwritten. A jumble of time travel and Infinity Gems and the messiness of human thought, presented as a tidy, well-organized workspace. </p><p>Reality’s been written and rewritten more than once recently, and in the quiet of Tony’s workshop—a recreation of a place where both he and Steve once belonged but no longer fit—Tony can feel the density of if, tough and heavy like overworked dough. First the mess with Kang, and most recently the Infinity Gems—both topics they aren’t quite speaking about. </p><p>“I still don’t like the call you made,” Steve starts, and Tony feels dread building from a distance, the way he feels, at high altitudes and in freezing weather, phantoms of the ice that doesn't form on his armor. “You and Xavier and Reed and the others. But I understand why you did. It’s not just personal, though. I need to know these things to do my job, and I didn’t.” </p><p>“And now you do,” Tony points out, unsure of his role in this part of the conversation. </p><p>“And now I do,” Steve agrees. “Is there anything else I should know?” </p><p>“That’s it,” Tony says, thinking of holding the Gems under his command and what he imagined and didn’t imagine, all that he imagined he didn’t. <em> I’ll only do two simple things…  </em></p><p>“Because,” Steve says, like Tony hasn’t spoken, “I was hoping we could—I mean. In Asgard—look. Did you mean what you said?” </p><p>“In Asgard?” </p><p>Steve nods. </p><p>Tony looks at his hands. They’re tangled up in each other, and though he doesn’t remember arranging them like that, he tries to center himself on them the way he would on a stubborn knot. Remove ring finger A from between pinky and pointer finger B.  “The—the stuff at the end, yeah. Of course.” </p><p>“Because,” Steve starts again, “I want that. I’m better when we work together, too.” </p><p>“Oh,” Tony says dumbly. “And here I thought you were here to kick me off the team,” he says, not quite exaggerating. The way Steve’s talking about it, around it, well, it’s hard not to imagine—</p><p>Steve ducks his head. His jaw works. He always says what he sets out to say, no matter what it costs him. “No. I wish I hadn’t said that in front of everyone.” </p><p>“Oh,” Tony says again. “I want that too, Steve. Of course I do.” </p><p>Steve smiles, broad and pleased, and how is Tony supposed to keep his distance when Steve looks at him like that? </p><p>How can Steve look at him like that, after all Tony’s done? Reality should preclude it, the way it precludes the destruction of the Gems. </p><p>“When you had the Gauntlet”—</p><p>—and the last Gem grasps onto Tony’s reach, settles into place beside its siblings; Tony holds Infinity. He tries not to imagine. All that power, cosmic power, contained in the ethereal light of the Infinity Gems. Small things. And small is how he keeps his thoughts. Parker Robbins stirred all this up—so he’s gone, back to the Raft. A nuisance eliminated. What next? </p><p>It’s hard not to imagine. He imagines himself not imagining. He doesn’t imagine a world without war, without alcohol or drugs, without hate or jealousy. He doesn’t imagine a technological paradise, doesn’t imagine Howard embracing him, doesn’t imagine hearing Jan’s laugh again. </p><p>
  <em> I could take back things I never should have said or done. </em>
</p><p>No, he can’t. </p><p>He thinks small. </p><p>The second thing Tony tries to do is impossible. </p><p>All of Infinity in his grasp, and he can’t get anything he wants, because it’s not even a possibility. It’s not a construction that can be built. </p><p>And Steve is already so, so disappointed in him. </p><p>Steve. Steve. Finite. If—</p><p>—it’s hard not to imagine—</p><p>—Steve stands in Tony’s workshop, now, in the present, still speaking, but what is time to Infinity—surely nothing that follows one moment after the last, first in/first out—</p><p>—“I paid attention to what you said, and what you did, and it reminded me all of the reasons to put my faith in you,” Steve says. “You proved yourself a hundred times over.” </p><p>“I didn’t—” </p><p>“Exactly,” Steve says. “You didn’t. You could’ve done anything, and you didn’t. Not many people could resist a temptation like that.” </p><p>Not many people who’ve done the kinds of things Tony’s done, he means.</p><p>Steve has no idea. </p><p>“Have you ever—” Steve cuts himself off, a fresh flush blooming up from his clavicle to the apples of his cheeks. It makes Tony think of mercury expanding in heat, climbing up the cylinder of a thermometer. </p><p>Tony takes an involuntary step back. His ankle hits the leg of a wheeled desk chair, sending it spinning out behind him. </p><p>Steve’s eyes alight on Tony’s lips. “So.” Steve swallows, and Tony thinks about Steve’s throat, and the word <em>swallow</em>, about sleek little songbirds, of wishes carried by darting tree swallows with notched tails and white bellies. </p><p>“Yeah,” Tony says, not quite a question and barely a word to which meaning can be ascribed, just a sound he makes because speaking gives him the illusion he has control of this conversation. </p><p>“Have you ever thought,” Steve says, voice quiet, low like the crackle of static electricity sparking off cold metal, “of me—I mean. Of you and me.” </p><p>“Yes,” Tony says, a little breathless, because the wind’s been knocked out of him. </p><p>“Yeah?” Steve shifts minutely closer, barely a step forward. He doesn’t touch Tony, doesn’t quite crowd him, but it’s still too intimate. It’s not the way you stand across from someone you can’t trust. It’s not the way you face someone who’s wronged you. “Because, I was. Thinking of us.” Abruptly, he adds, “You don’t remember.” </p><p>“I’m sorry,” Tony says, knowing just what it is he doesn’t remember. Whatever’s between them, Tony can’t get what he wants, not really. Other people get to move on, find solace in one another, find a love with currents strong enough to carry them both. Other people don’t have a war between them. </p><p>Steve shakes his head. “I’m glad you don’t.” His voice is quiet. “I almost killed you then.” He swallows; songbirds call out in Tony’s mind. “I don’t want you to remember that. It’s like—doesn’t it feel like we’re getting another chance?” </p><p>Tony can’t deny it. He’s been given more chances than he deserves. </p><p>“Can I ask you something?” </p><p>Tony nods. </p><p>“Am I too late?” </p><p>Tony clears his throat. It’s overloud in the hush they’ve created for themselves, the feeling of breath held before a plunge. The breadth of the room gapes around them with an agoraphobia earned in lowered voices. “Can I ask you something?” </p><p>“Of course.” </p><p>“It’s going to sound strange.” </p><p>Steve’s smile gives Tony goosebumps. It’s bright, and just the way Tony loves to imagine it. “Try me.” </p><p>A question Tony will not ask is: <em> What would you wish for, if you had the power of Infinity? </em></p><p>Another is: <em> What would you want to wish for, but know you shouldn’t?  </em></p><p>Or is such a question anathema to Steve? Are his wishes only for what is possible, what is just? </p><p>“If reality changed, do you think we could tell?” </p><p>“Okay,” Steve huffs softly, “that’s not what I thought you’d ask. Well." He chews on a lip. "I think it depends on what changed, and who changed it.” </p><p>“Do you think it has?” </p><p>“Do I think reality has changed?” </p><p>Tony nods. </p><p>“No more so than usual,” Steve teases. Seeing the serious expression on Tony’s face, he sobers and adds, “No, not like what you mean. Like Robbins did something we missed? Some side effect of you having the Gems? No, I don’t get that feeling at all.” </p><p>“Do you think that’s something that can be proven?” </p><p>“I think I see what you’re getting at,” Steve says, patient but expectant. “I guess not, by the nature of the question, no, if the universe were completely altered, there wouldn’t be any evidence of it. That seems more the kind of question for you or Reed, though.” </p><p>“Would you want to know?”</p><p>“Would I want to know that the universe I was in had been changed, some part of reality or time or whatever? Yes, of course I’d want to know. Wanna tell me what you’re thinking?” </p><p>“You don’t think it’s—didn’t you hate me yesterday?” </p><p>Understanding falls over Steve’s face like a heavy curtain. “Oh, Tony.” His voice is soft, devastatingly so, like a handful of crushed velvet against bare skin. “You didn’t use the Gems to change me. Of course you didn’t.” </p><p>“You didn’t see the expression on your face,” Tony says, hearing the strain in his voice, “when you got to Attilan. I broke us, don’t pretend I didn’t.” </p><p>“Tony,” Steve says, imbuing the word with power, like Tony is the very principle he fights for, and god, what would that look like, if it were real? </p><p>Steve reaches for him, cups his face in one hand. Tony lets him. He touches Tony just on the outside boundaries of his body, like he’s trying to lift a shed dragonfly wing by its edges. </p><p>“That, the yelling, disappointing you, betraying you, that’s us. That’s what I did. And you should know, you’re the one who remembers it.” </p><p>“No, Tony.” </p><p>The hand lifts, buries itself in Tony’s hair. Full contact. Immersion. Tony leans into it, wondering when he closed his eyes. Tears eke out of the creases. What if he could earn Steve back, for real, in small pieces just like this one? </p><p>“You changed me, alright, but not like you mean. Not all at once.” </p><p><em> This is what it would sound like, </em> Tony thinks. <em> This is what Steve would say. </em> </p><p>He sags, buries his face against the broad wall of Steve’s chest. “Every way I’ve ever tried to be better, it was because of you.” </p><p>Steve takes Tony in his arms. Tony shudders, like the weight of Steve’s arms is the pulse of a sob. “I know,” Steve says. “I know, Tony. Why can’t you believe the same of me?” </p><p>“Because if you’re wrong,” Tony stops talking. He can’t finish the sentence. </p><p>He imagines finishing the sentence. <em> Because if you’re wrong, if you offer I’ll take all of you I can get, if I touch you and you never would’ve wanted me to, if I touch you and it’s only because I wished for it imagined it if I take your love when it’s only mine reflected back at me if I’ve betrayed you again—if I’ve hurt you again and I touch you</em>—</p><p>He can’t imagine an end to the sentence. Tony gasps, feeling like a drowning victim surfacing above water. He lifts his head and nearly collides with Steve’s, visible now, painted with concern and affection. Tony surges up for air, taking Steve’s head in his hands and wringing a kiss out of their lips when they meet. </p><p>Steve kisses back, hard and eager and utterly straightforward. The intensity sets Tony trembling. Steve’s hand lights on Tony’s waist, a hummingbird hovering to suckle at a sweet bloom. It pulls Tony to him as surely as if Tony were trapped there. </p><p>But Tony won’t imagine—</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>A version of his idea has germinated in me since I first read Avengers Vol. 4. It was one of the first 616 arcs I read. Recently I read and reread a lot of Civil War while researching other stories, then reread this, and that really shaped the way I interpreted the arc this time around. I was really interested in the setup around power and responsibility, to borrow a phrase. That beloved series of panels of Steve and Tony yelling in the snow includes Steve’s accusations and anger regarding how Tony took and used the power he held during and after Civil War. It also gives voice to Steve’s disappointment at what he sees as a repeat of that betrayal and miscarriage of justice. Then, ultimately, Tony repudiates this opportunity for ultimate power—a power the Watcher has been telling the reader is beyond powerful, beyond our comprehension—and uses it only to teleport the Hood and more or less cast an illusion spell. In the end, Tony is keeping secrets again, but this time, Steve’s in on it, faith restored. </p><p>Hopefully all of this comes through as some of the spice in this angst-flavored melange. </p><p>I have <a href="https://dirigibleplumbing.tumblr.com/">a tumblr</a>. Come say hi or yell about Steve and Tony with me! There's also a <a href="https://dirigibleplumbing.tumblr.com/post/627909370566590464/thought-experiment-dirigibleplumbing-marvel">tumblr post for the fic</a>. Likes and reblogs appreciated.</p><p>And! I am looking for a beta / cheerreader who knows 616 canon. If you're interested, leave me a comment, <a href="http://tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/dirigibleplumbing">message me on tumblr</a>, or <a href="mailto:dirigibleplumbing@gmail.com">email me</a>.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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